On The Tragic And Comic Elements Of G. B. Shaw’s Plays

George Bernard Shaw is one of the representatives in English literature of thetwentieth century, and his contribution to the genre of the plays is undeniable. He is aprolific dramatist and he writes more than60plays in his life time. He attempts toexpose the social problems of his time. However, most of his plays are not classifiedinto tragedy or comedy. Instead, they are labeled as tragicomedy, since both tragic andcomic elements can be found in his plays. Mrs. Warren’s Profession and Pygmalionare of this type and they are considered to be two of Shaw’s representative plays.Therefore, this thesis takes these two plays as examples to analyze Shaw’stragicomedy.By comparing the studies of Shaw’s plays in literary critics, the writer of thisthesis has noticed that some critics pay great attention to the social problems in Shaw’splays while others are in favor of applying a specific literary theory to study theartistic value of Shaw’s plays. This thesis, however, aims at probing into the primarycauses of the tragic and the comic elements from the perspectives of philosophy, socialinjustice of Shaw’s time, and his realistic and idealistic thoughts. Although tragic andcomic elements are analyzed separately in this paper, the writer intends to concludethat only by combining the two types of elements perfectly can the artistic force ofShaw’s tragicomedy be manifested to the readers.